Biffle Lawsuits begin.
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Kenny Phillips
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In my experience, those are things the insurance company wants to know.
If he had insurance. Who knows.
Ed Haywood
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The guy who flew is dead. His estate is suing. He's got a wife, 3 surviving kids, and 3 grandkids.
Dennis Rollan Dutton Obituary (2025) - Mooresville, NC - Ingram Services, Inc.
View Dennis Rollan Dutton's obituary, send flowers and sign the guestbook.
www.legacy.com
This will settle. Neither party has any incentive to fight. Biffle's net worth was $30M. Ballpark 10% gets set aside in a trust for Dutton's family.
SkyHog
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Almost every lawyer I've ever met is a good person. The acts behind litigation are almost never rooted in good, unfortunately, but I would never disparage lawyers themselves for that - simply the bad litigation that sometimes occurs.
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I suppose your sweeping generalization might be true. I'm not here complaining about lawyers. And you can believe it or not, but I've been in a situation or two without looking to sue. Some people accept responsibility. Some people look for other people to blame.
A number of years ago I was injured (and hospitalized) while on travel for work. When I got home after two weeks in the hospital, there were over a dozen postcards from injury lawyers offering to take my case. I didn't sue anyone because the incident was my own dang fault. Nobody else was to blame.
All the ambulances chasers did not give me warm fuzzy feelings about some of the lawyers out there.
(note I said "some")
Daleandee
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Isn't that like wrecking your truck to get the insurance money so you can make the payment?
wanttaja
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Friend of mine got into a car accident a couple of decades ago. She contacted a lawyer just to be on the safe side. The lawyer recommended a certain physical therapy company.
Her first visit to physical therapy consisted of a five-minute light neck massage, and a big bill. The physical therapy owner was of the same national origin as the lawyer.
She switched to another lawyer, which gave her a *lot* better service and recommendations. This lawyer obviously wished her to get well, not rack up big bills to hit the defendant with.
Like you say, not *all* lawyers are bad, but we have to do our due diligence.
Ron Wanttaja
Half Fast
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Once upon a time, a band I was in had a keyboard player who was an attorney. He worked for the bar association, investigating and sometimes busting bad lawyers. He was never short of work....
No clue. But the only time I've seen an insurer as plaintiff, in my limited experiences, was them trying to recoup the payout to their policy holder. Regardless, people tend to forget attorneys are the #1 advocate for their client and will strive to get whatever they can for them.
I'm sorry, but the dead guys family deserves not one dollar. This is a sad state of affairs when through professional negligence of their own making destroys their own family, and the family of someone else(most all the family) the remaining dead guy's family is looking for a hand out.
Life's tough when one makes stupid decisions. Sadly, completely innocent people suffer. The estate should put up a good fight, never settle and spend it all on hookers, blow and lawyer fees. At least the defendant's lawyers will feed at the trough. Better than the killer.
Life's tough when one makes stupid decisions. Sadly, completely innocent people suffer. The estate should put up a good fight, never settle and spend it all on hookers, blow and lawyer fees. At least the defendant's lawyers will feed at the trough. Better than the killer.
midwestpa24
Final Approach
So when will the Biffle estate sue the pilot's estate for negligence in flying an unairworthy airplane?
I'm saying it's very possible, bordering on very likely, that the insurer heavily influenced the decision. They have people paid to do that, and they're very good at it. Look, I'm not pulling this possibility out of thin air, I've seen it first hand. Again, I'm not saying the families in question aren't doing this themselves out of ****bird status, but the alternate is a real possibility.
Ed Haywood
Final Approach
It is quite possible. I've dealt a lot with insurance carriers for business. Their main action on claims is to refer to a law firm to negotiate resolution on their behalf. The claimant also has lawyers, and both sides know the game. Going to court is almost never cost effective, so the great majority of cases get settled with mediocre results for all sides. Filing suit puts you at the table for the settlement conversation.
The lawyers aren't getting rich for the most part. They are hamsters on a treadmill, trying to hit their firm's hourly billing targets.
Ed Haywood
Final Approach
There is a specific legal reason for this. Without damages, a victim has no standing to sue. Medical treatment cost creates financial damages, opening up the possibility of legal action later. Every ambulance chaser in the country will automatically refer all potential claimants to PT as a first step. Maybe 1 out of 100 of those eventually become cases.
Given that he’s the one that killed everyone, why should his adult kids get a trust?The guy who flew is dead. His estate is suing. He's got a wife, 3 surviving kids, and 3 grandkids.
Dennis Rollan Dutton Obituary (2025) - Mooresville, NC - Ingram Services, Inc.
View Dennis Rollan Dutton's obituary, send flowers and sign the guestbook.
This will settle. Neither party has any incentive to fight. Biffle's net worth was $30M. Ballpark 10% gets set aside in a trust for Dutton's family.
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Not yet known, let’s wait for the final. If the pilot F’d up, then yeah, the family deserves not one cent. But maybe the airplane gave him a **** sandwich that was unsolvable, and if it was tied to deficient mx, they have a case.
FlightmechH3
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This whole thing is like a 5-part made for TV movie. A cheap but rich retired race car driver, a private jet with known maintenance issues, a pilot for hire flying dirty with his son, the owner knowing they were flying dirty.
Now a robbery by his helicopter pilot and his wife after the crash.
Now attorneys picking over the carcass
Now a robbery by his helicopter pilot and his wife after the crash.
Now attorneys picking over the carcass
MauleSkinner
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Has that been documented?
I have enough of the situation to make an informed opinion. If the pilot is found harmless I'll eat crow right here, and prostrate myself for flagellation.
If the plane wasn't adequately maintained to fly then why did the PIC fly it? ;_;
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POA: Journalists and everyone else know nothing about aviation, you can’t take anything they say with less than a Goderich Mine full of salt. There’s nothing more annoying or disruptive to public confidence in aviation than the rampant, uninformed speculation that accompanies all reporting about every aviation mishap.
Also POA: We know everything about the laws of negligence, insurance, professional responsibility, probate, and bird law, and are comfortable stating firm conclusions about the law, the parties, the lawyers, the judge, and the relationships amongst all of them.
Also POA: We know everything about the laws of negligence, insurance, professional responsibility, probate, and bird law, and are comfortable stating firm conclusions about the law, the parties, the lawyers, the judge, and the relationships amongst all of them.
All good people of POA. I'm a boomer. And, I got here the hard way. Plenty, and more involvement with attys over the years, both civil and criminal. My findings are, it's a game of percentages. Or - a risk/return graph where the atty has to weigh both sides, figure the potential curve balls, get all the info they can find and then come up with some calculus that will either; A - free the culprit with the least amount of damage, or; B - do the maximum damage to the other guys wallet, while keeping our wallet closed snugly.
Doing some 'what-if', suppose this wasn't a jet, and it wasn't a Biffle, and the same result happened with a clapped out 182. The 'estate' of the dead family amounts to a few hundred k, and the likelyhood of ANY recovery is marginal at best, and unlikely given the set of circumstance involved.'
So - John Doe ESQ. upstanding member of the state bar, is hiring an investigator who digs into the 182 dead owners 'estate' and finds that there's a list of claimants, family, and hangers-on a mile long. John knows if he files this POS tort against the family that it's barely possible he'll get a positive result, and even if he comes up double-sixes, the probability of a payoff is worse than the CA Lotto probability. John is going to tell the potential plaintiffs that they can sue, but first put $XX,XXX into a retainer acct and he will fire up the pleading and file it like a good public trust member. Summary, there's no pot of gold, no rainbow, and no little short bearded guy with a corn pipe handing out doubloons.
What-ifs notwithstanding, some atty gets a call or more likely makes a call(professional ethics be damned) and drums up some interest because in this case there IS a massive pot of gold! There's even a smidge of a rainbow with possibly some finagling the facts in such a way as to spread the **** sandwich so that a tiny crack in that $30M estate is - exposed for the taking!
Yeah - the defendants don't want to sit in depos for weeks and they don't want to re-visit the worst day of their lives, and they have some sh-sh-sh-shark sending crap in the mail every week. Maybe - possibly, at some point the poor defendants will just '**** it, send up a balloon and see if they will take a check and leave us the hell alone'. That is precisely what the plaintiff atty is doing. Maximizing the potential for some scraps while minimizing the cost of playing the game. It's - numbers. Who wants to go to court and testify? Who wants to go over the deaths of their loved ones again, and again, and again in public? Can we get out of this with $25,000? $75,000? $100,000? Yes? We've got a deal. John Doe ESQ cashes a $40k check because the alternative is months maybe years of torture by tort.
Tell me I'm wrong.
Doing some 'what-if', suppose this wasn't a jet, and it wasn't a Biffle, and the same result happened with a clapped out 182. The 'estate' of the dead family amounts to a few hundred k, and the likelyhood of ANY recovery is marginal at best, and unlikely given the set of circumstance involved.'
So - John Doe ESQ. upstanding member of the state bar, is hiring an investigator who digs into the 182 dead owners 'estate' and finds that there's a list of claimants, family, and hangers-on a mile long. John knows if he files this POS tort against the family that it's barely possible he'll get a positive result, and even if he comes up double-sixes, the probability of a payoff is worse than the CA Lotto probability. John is going to tell the potential plaintiffs that they can sue, but first put $XX,XXX into a retainer acct and he will fire up the pleading and file it like a good public trust member. Summary, there's no pot of gold, no rainbow, and no little short bearded guy with a corn pipe handing out doubloons.
What-ifs notwithstanding, some atty gets a call or more likely makes a call(professional ethics be damned) and drums up some interest because in this case there IS a massive pot of gold! There's even a smidge of a rainbow with possibly some finagling the facts in such a way as to spread the **** sandwich so that a tiny crack in that $30M estate is - exposed for the taking!
Yeah - the defendants don't want to sit in depos for weeks and they don't want to re-visit the worst day of their lives, and they have some sh-sh-sh-shark sending crap in the mail every week. Maybe - possibly, at some point the poor defendants will just '**** it, send up a balloon and see if they will take a check and leave us the hell alone'. That is precisely what the plaintiff atty is doing. Maximizing the potential for some scraps while minimizing the cost of playing the game. It's - numbers. Who wants to go to court and testify? Who wants to go over the deaths of their loved ones again, and again, and again in public? Can we get out of this with $25,000? $75,000? $100,000? Yes? We've got a deal. John Doe ESQ cashes a $40k check because the alternative is months maybe years of torture by tort.
Tell me I'm wrong.
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THIS is what I've been talking about! You are not wrong.All good people of POA. I'm a boomer. And, I got here the hard way. Plenty, and more involvement with attys over the years, both civil and criminal. My findings are, it's a game of percentages. Or - a risk/return graph where the atty has to weigh both sides, figure the potential curve balls, get all the info they can find and then come up with some calculus that will either; A - free the culprit with the least amount of damage, or; B - do the maximum damage to the other guys wallet, while keeping our wallet closed snugly.
Doing some 'what-if', suppose this wasn't a jet, and it wasn't a Biffle, and the same result happened with a clapped out 182. The 'estate' of the dead family amounts to a few hundred k, and the likelyhood of ANY recovery is marginal at best, and unlikely given the set of circumstance involved.'
So - John Doe ESQ. upstanding member of the state bar, is hiring an investigator who digs into the 182 dead owners 'estate' and finds that there's a list of claimants, family, and hangers-on a mile long. John knows if he files this POS tort against the family that it's barely possible he'll get a positive result, and even if he comes up double-sixes, the probability of a payoff is worse than the CA Lotto probability. John is going to tell the potential plaintiffs that they can sue, but first put $XX,XXX into a retainer acct and he will fire up the pleading and file it like a good public trust member. Summary, there's no pot of gold, no rainbow, and no little short bearded guy with a corn pipe handing out doubloons.
What-ifs notwithstanding, some atty gets a call or more likely makes a call(professional ethics be damned) and drums up some interest because in this case there IS a massive pot of gold! There's even a smidge of a rainbow with possibly some finagling the facts in such a way as to spread the **** sandwich so that a tiny crack in that $30M estate is - exposed for the taking!
Yeah - the defendants don't want to sit in depos for weeks and they don't want to re-visit the worst day of their lives, and they have some sh-sh-sh-shark sending crap in the mail every week. Maybe - possibly, at some point the poor defendants will just '**** it, send up a balloon and see if they will take a check and leave us the hell alone'. That is precisely what the plaintiff atty is doing. Maximizing the potential for some scraps while minimizing the cost of playing the game. It's - numbers. Who wants to go to court and testify? Who wants to go over the deaths of their loved ones again, and again, and again in public? Can we get out of this with $25,000? $75,000? $100,000? Yes? We've got a deal. John Doe ESQ cashes a $40k check because the alternative is months maybe years of torture by tort.
Tell me I'm wrong.
MauleSkinner
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Keep in mind there can be a big difference between the quality of the maintenance records and the condition of the airplane.
Tools
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Additionally, a former airline guy isn’t by nature skeptical of maintenance, nor would he really know how to decipher any of it.
THIS GUY might have, but not by virtue of being a former major airline guy.
Whether or not he was causal in the deaths of people really remains to be seen. Legal smeagle single pilot blah blah, he was capable of handling the aircraft. THAT really isn’t much in question.
While I agree with Barrett50, I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact none of this really matters.. that root cause has little or nothing to do with this process.
THIS GUY might have, but not by virtue of being a former major airline guy.
Whether or not he was causal in the deaths of people really remains to be seen. Legal smeagle single pilot blah blah, he was capable of handling the aircraft. THAT really isn’t much in question.
While I agree with Barrett50, I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact none of this really matters.. that root cause has little or nothing to do with this process.
What I find interesting is the timing of this initial legal action so early in the process. Seems to be more a strategic move on the part of the Dutton's than anything else. Does anyone have access to the actual filings and know if it was made in state or federal court?
Half Fast
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You might enjoy this thread:
Ferry flight lawsuit (mods please help with title)
tldr; ferry flight had poorly installed ferry tanks. Google founder sued. Let the “all lawsuits are the work of the devil” chants begin. https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/24/24082072/sergey-brin-google-2023-plane-crash-lawsuit
If you want the TLDR summary, see my post #96:
[/QUOTE]
FlightmechH3
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Money brings out the worst in people. Especially 30 million dollars
Life insurance works a little differently than auto/flight insurance. It's not an indemnification in most cases, i.e., paying out for a loss, but rather it's a fixed value payout. While it is possible in some circumstances, it's not very likely on the type of term policies that a pilot likely held.
Charlotte Observer has published the filing of Dutton the elder, which was filed in Iredell County Superior Court, State of NC.
FlightmechH3
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"Among the suit’s 11 claims are that Biffle failed to ensure the plane was operated with a sufficient crew (regulations require two licensed pilots for that aircraft, and neither the younger Dutton nor Biffle was qualified to fly it), failed to conduct adequate safety checks and failed to maintain the plane in an airworthy condition.
There could be more wrongful death lawsuits as a result of the accident. The estate of Emma Biffle, daughter of Greg Biffle and Nicole Biffle (who was not on board the plane), filed notice in February that it may make a claim against Greg Biffle’s estate for $10 million."
I think the Dutton's and Biffle himself are at fault. They knowingly flew illegally and there is ZERO excuse for anyone to say "prove it" to me. It's obvious that Biff as a driver (If you ain't cheating, you aren't winning) had this mentality. Plus, as a millionaire, he was used to spending his sponsor's money for racing. Now, with a jet and numerous toys, he's going to cheap out on aircraft maintenance and even paying for one pilot instead of two since it's coming out of his pocket.
Sorry, Biffle was not a good guy and don't put him up on a pedestal
There could be more wrongful death lawsuits as a result of the accident. The estate of Emma Biffle, daughter of Greg Biffle and Nicole Biffle (who was not on board the plane), filed notice in February that it may make a claim against Greg Biffle’s estate for $10 million."
I think the Dutton's and Biffle himself are at fault. They knowingly flew illegally and there is ZERO excuse for anyone to say "prove it" to me. It's obvious that Biff as a driver (If you ain't cheating, you aren't winning) had this mentality. Plus, as a millionaire, he was used to spending his sponsor's money for racing. Now, with a jet and numerous toys, he's going to cheap out on aircraft maintenance and even paying for one pilot instead of two since it's coming out of his pocket.
Sorry, Biffle was not a good guy and don't put him up on a pedestal
There were 2 red flags before the wheels ever left the ground. No wait, 3, given that the PIC himself knew they did not have a legal crew. So regardless of what Biffle did or didn’t do, I find it hard to see the PIC blaming someone else.
It isn’t? Because I think the smoking wreckage and the 7 funerals would indicate otherwise.
I really love this theory: he flew a perfectly good airplane straight into the ground in VMC, but he knew how to handle that aircraft!
And the theory that a guy who missed a pretty flipping serious checklist item didn’t need a REQUIRED crew member. Yeah, that makes sense.
MauleSkinner
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The fact that it’s a Citation tells me the whole operation was illegal, immoral, and otherwise suspect. Good news is the courts should require “prove it.”
Tools
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More of a just because he could didn’t mean he did. Two pilots of the same caliber could have just as easily had the same result.
Two pilots aren’t required to mitigate the just in case one sucks situation, rather handle the workload of normal operations, unless he has special permission.
Do you have a direct link to those filings? The Observer won't let me access due to my ad blocker.
Iredell County is where SVH and the Biffle entity that owned the plane was located.
bonefishpete
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Will Cessna get dragged in too?